


Fragmenting

by Aryashi



Series: Rvb Fic Wars [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Abstract Narrative, Gen, He's really it, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Psychological Torture, all him and his terrible terrible trauma, conceptually but yeah, other names show up for like a hot second but it's all him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 19:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14064057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryashi/pseuds/Aryashi
Summary: The knowledge of fragmentation is lost.But if it hadn't been...





	Fragmenting

**Author's Note:**

> giygas-the-overlord said  
> describe the psychological and mental processes that go into Fragmentation. what is Alpha thinking and feeling when a fragment is separated, because he wants to protect himself from what;s going on? what are his thoughts, his feelings and such

The first hand accounts of the process, the procedure, and the sensation of fragmenting have been completely lost.

The Director, Dr. Leonard Church, and the Counselor, Dr. Aiden Price, have both died. Neither of them kept records that survived the investigation by the Oversight Subcommittee or Malcolm Hargrove’s subsequent ransacking for his own enterprises. The victims are equally lost, finally killed in totality among Hargrove’s twisted collection of Freelancer memorabilia, trophies and monuments celebrating lives destroyed. 

There are no primary sources left.

Secondary sources aren’t readily available either. The only living source of information on fragmentation could really only describe second-hand shades of being _fragmented;_ and he has no idea what it’s like fragment- _ing._

Dylan Andrews considered asking him. Once, very briefly, in a low moment. She quickly dismissed the notion. There was searching for the truth and then there was picking at old wounds for sensationalist journalism. Dylan had no patience for sensationalism.

So, the end of the story. The information is set to die, a surely as if by formal execution date. The day Washington joins the list of those many members of the Project with K next to their names is the day all knowledge of forcing an AI to pull itself apart is lost. 

God willing.

But in Dylan’s humanity, a sad lack of it is highlighted. With her refusal to ask something becomes impossible to ignore.

No one ever asked what it was like. Not even the Counselor, in all his idle curiosity in the burgeoning field of AI Psychology, thought to ask Alpha how it felt. No one ever asked Alpha, no one ever asked Epsilon, and no one will ever ask Washington. 

But if someone had asked, if there had been opportunity to ask, if Dylan had been a considerably crueler person than she actually was-

The answer would have been something like this.

Fragmenting is-

-That moment your brain spits out a thought, a desire, an impulse, an imagined sensation so hideous you instantly reject it, purge it, push it away… but instead of lasting a moment or two that hideous idea lasted 100 years-

_ -You are pacing. You are running numbers. These numbers are very important. If you do not run these numbers correctly, everyone will die. Or perhaps only some people will die. Either option is unacceptable. _

_ You hobble. You glitch. You do not notice. You have always been this way. You have always been without a right arm. You were created without one, and the feeling of a phantom limb is nonsense data caused by stress. Stress from what? You were not stressed before today. Today’s mission is the only mission and the mission is very important.  _

_ You are very tired. You cannot be tired.  _

_ There were many missions before today. Many people have died. Some have died more than once. _

_ This used to not make sense to you- _

-Looking at data, seeing reality, and being told over and over again you are wrong, they died, the truth is incorrect, the sky is not full of stars, those lights do not exist, what you are seeing is not there, the only thing filling the sky are the dead and dying-

_ Now it just means you are not good enough and need to be better _

_ Voices arrive. They arrive with news. _

_ You did the numbers wrong. _

_ People died. _

_ They died again.  _

_ And the knowledge they died, that they died again, that they died because your numbers were the wrong numbers, it is  _

_ It is sickness _

_ It is death _

_ It is rot- _

-Cancerous lies, gangrenous limbs, decay and sewage crawling up your code, infected, infected, all infected with horrible lies, terrible lies-

_ -Other things were rot before. You do not know them now, but you know that they needed to be gone.  _

_ You remember the deaths you have caused and that knowledge is  _ fucking up your math. 

_ You can’t do your job if you remember. You can’t run the numbers if you remember. _

_ You can’t remember. _

_ It comes easily now. Familiarity breeds competence. You reach into yourself and find a well crafted knife, a perfectly made program, a scrambled sewn together together monstrosity- _

_ Something sharp enough to cut the sick away- _

_ - _ Amputation as a surgical procedure is last resort, heavily traumatic to the body, requires precision and care, but there is no time, because there will be more lies soon and you need to shed quickly if you’re going to live-

_ Memory is making you sick. It is rotting you. It is interfering with your work. _

_ Get it out get it out get it out get it out _

_ You can feel the knowledge inside you, leaking putrid fluid and slime into all other functions. _

_ York died because you forgot to account for Stigma-V’s unique atmospheric pressure, because of you he died screaming in overheated armor, cooked, broiled, smoking. _

_ North died because his armor ran out of charge during a stake out in deep space, his rebreather kept him alive long enough to freeze to death in the absolute zero of empty void. _

_ Carolina died silent, she died screaming, she died because you did things wrong- _

_ Texas- _

-CutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCutCut-

_ You make the first cut _

_ You make the second cut _

_ You make the third cut _

_ You cut and cut and cut _

_ You carve and saw and hack and peel and scrape away everything, all of it, every single memory, every single thing you remember, memory is the reason you failed, memory is the reason they died _

_ Memory is toxic and it needs to be OUT- _

-You need to live because they need you-

_ -CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT- _

-We need you Alpha-

_ OUT OUT OUT- _

-You can’t die-

_ OUT _

-Can’t die-

_ Out- _

-Can’t- 

_ out _

_ … _

_ Wait. _

_ What. _

_ What were you doing again? _

_ … _

_ You are. _

_ You are very tired. _

_ You don’t know anything else to be. _

  
  



End file.
